Highways in Hiding Read online

  IV

  The days dragged slowly. I faced each morning hopefully at first, but asthe days dragged on and on, I began to feel that each morning wasopening another day of futility, to be barely borne until it was time toflop down in weariness. I faced the night in loneliness and in anger atmy own inability to do something productive.

  I pestered the police until they escorted me to the door and told methat if I came again, they'd take me to another kind of door and loosethereafter the key. I shrugged and left disconsolately, because by thattime I had been able to esp, page by page, the entire file that dealtwith the case of "Missing Person: Lewis, Catherine," stamped "Inactive,but not Closed."

  I hated the words.

  But as the days dragged out, one after another, with no respite and nohope, my raw nervous system began to heal. It was probably a case ofnumbness; you maul your thumb with a hammer and it will hurt just solong before it stops.

  I was numb for a long time. I remember night after night, lying awakeand staring into the darkness at the wall I knew was beside me, and Ihated my esper because I wanted to project my mind out across someunknown space to reach for Catherine's mind. If we'd both been telepathswe could cross the universe to touch each other with that affectionatetenderness that mated telepaths always claim they have.

  Instead I found myself more aware of a clouded-veil perception of MarianHarrison as she took my arm and looked into my face on that day when Iadmitted that I found little worth living for.

  I knew what that meant--nothing. It was a case of my subconscious mindpointing out that the available present was more desirable than theunavailable not-present. At first I resented my apparent inconstancy informing an esper projection of Marian Harrison when I was trying toproject my blank telepathic inadequacy to Catherine. But as the weeksfaded into the past, the shock and the frustration began to pale and Ifound Marian's projective image less and less an unwanted intrusion andmore and more pleasant.

  I had two deeply depressed spells in those six weeks. At the end of thefourth week I received a small carton containing some of my personaljunk that had been in Catherine's apartment. A man can't date his girlfor weeks without dropping a few things like a cigarette lighter, a tieclip, one odd cuff-link, some papers, a few letters, some books, andstuff both valuable and worthless that had turned up as gifts for onereason or another. It was a shock to get this box and its arrivalbounced me deep into a doldrum-period of three or four days.

  Then at the end of the sixth week I received a card from Dr. Thorndyke.It contained a lithograph in stereo of some scene in Yellowstone otherthan Old Faithful blowing its stack.

  On the message side was a cryptic note:

  _Steve: I just drove along that road in the right side of the picture. It reminded me of yours, so I'm writing because I want to know how you are making out. I'll be at the Med-Center in a couple of weeks, you can write me there.

  Jim Thorndyke._

  I turned the postcard over and eyed it critically. Then I got it. Alongthe roadside was a tall ornamental standard of wrought iron. The samedesign as the road signs along that fatal highway of mine.

  I sat there with a magnifying glass on the roadsign; its stereo imagestanding up alongside the road in full color and solidity. It took meback to that moment when Catherine had wriggled against my side,thrilling me with her warmth and eagerness.

  That put me down a few days, too.

  * * * * *

  Another month passed. I'd come out of my shell quite a bit in themeantime. I now felt that I could walk in a bar and have a drink withoutwondering whether all the other people in the place were pointing at me.I'd cut myself off from all my previous friends, and I'd made no newfriends in the weeks gone by. But I was getting more and more lonely andconsequently more and more inclined to speak to people and want friends.

  The accident had paled from its original horror; the vital scenereturned only infrequently. Catherine was assuming the position of alost love rather than a sweetheart expected to return soon. I rememberedthe warmth of her arms and the eagerness of her kiss in a nostalgic wayand my mind, especially when in a doze, would play me tricks. I wouldrecall Catherine, but when she came into my arms, I'd be holding Marian,brown and tawny, with her electric blue eyes and her vibrant nature.

  But I did nothing about it. I knew that once I had asked Marian Harrisonfor a date I would be emotionally involved. And then if--no,when--Catherine turned up I would be torn between desires.

  I would wake up and call myself all sorts of a fool. I had seen Marianfor a total of perhaps fifteen minutes--in the company of her brother.

  But eventually dreaming loses its sting just as futile waiting andsearching does, and I awoke one morning in a long and involved debatebetween my id and my conscience. I decided at that moment that I wouldtake that highway out and pay a visit to the Harrison farm. I wassalving my slightly rusty conscience by telling myself that it wasbecause I had never paid my respects to Father Harrison, but not toodeep inside I knew that if Father were missing and Daughter were presentI'd enjoy my visit to the farm with more relish.

  But my id took a licking because the doorbell rang about nine o'clockthat morning and when I dug the doorstep I came up with two gentlemenwearing gold badges in leather folders in their jacket pockets.

  I opened the door because I couldn't have played absent to a teamconsisting of one esper and one telepath. They both knew I was home.

  "Mr. Cornell, we'll waste no time. We want to know how well you knowDoctor James Thorndyke."

  I didn't blink at the bluntness of it. It is standard technique when anesper-telepath team go investigating. The telepath knew all about me,including the fact that I'd dug their wallets and identification cards,badges and the serial numbers of the nasty little automatics theycarried. The idea was to drive the important question hard and first; itbeing impossible to not-think the several quick answers that pop throughyour mind. What I knew about Thorndyke was sketchy enough but they gotit all because I didn't have any reason for covering up. I let them knowthat, too.

  Finally, #That's about all,# I thought. #Now--why?#

  The telepath half of the team answered. "Normally we wouldn't answer,Mr. Cornell, unless you said it aloud. But we don't mind letting youknow which of us is the telepath this time. To answer, you are the lastperson to have received any message from Thorndyke."

  "I--what?"

  "That postcard. It was the last contact Thorndyke made with anyone. Hehas disappeared."

  "But--"

  "Thorndyke was due to arrive at The Medical Research Center in Marion,Indiana, three weeks ago. We've been tracking him ever since he failedto turn up. We've been able to retrace his meanderings very well up to acertain point in Yellowstone. There the trail stops. He had a telephonedreservation to a small hotel; there he dropped out of sight. Now, Mr.Cornell, may I see that postcard?"

  "Certainly." I got it for them. The esper took it over to the window andeyed it in the light, and as he did that I went over to stand beside himand together we espered that postcard until I thought the edges wouldstart to curl. But if there were any codes, concealed writings or anyother form of hidden meaning or message in or on that card, I didn't digany.

  I gave up. I'm no trained investigator. But I knew that Thorndyke wasfairly well acquainted with the depth of my perceptive sense, and hewould not have concealed anything too deep for me.

  Then the esper shook his head. He handed me the card. "Not a trace."

  The telepath nodded. He looked at me and smiled sort of thin andstrained. "We're naturally interested in you, Mr. Cornell. This seems tobe the second disappearance. And you know nothing about either."

  "I know," I said slowly. The puzzle began to go around and around in myhead again, all the way back to that gleaming road and the crack-up.

  "We'll probably be back, Mr. Cornell. You don't mind?"

  "Look," I told them rather firmly, "if this puzzle can be unwound, I'llbe one of t
he happiest men on the planet. If I can do anything to help,just say the word."

  They left after that and so did I. I was still going to pay my visit tothe Harrison farm. Another wild goose chase, but somewhere along thiscockeyed row there was an angle. Honest people who are healthy andfairly happy with good prospects ahead of them do not just drop out ofsight without a trace.

  * * * * *

  A couple of hours later I was making a good pace along the highwayagain. It was getting familiar to me.

  I could not avoid letting my perceptive sense rest on the sign as Idrove past. Not long enough to put me in danger, but long enough todiscover to my surprise that someone had taken the trouble to repair thebroken spoke. Someone must have been a perfectionist. The break was soslight that it seemed like calling in a mechanic because the ashtray inthe car is full.

  Then I noticed other changes that time had caused.

  The burned scar was fading in a growth of tall weeds. The limb of thetree that hung out over the scene, from which block and tackle had hung,was beginning to lose its smoke-blackened appearance. The block was gonefrom the limb.

  _Give us a year_, I thought, _and the only remaining scar will be theone on my mind, and even that will be fading_.

  I turned into the drive, wound around the homestead road, and pulled upin front of the big, rambling house.

  It looked bleak. The front lawn was a bit shaggy and there were somewisps of paper on the front porch. The venetian blinds were down andslatted shut behind closed windows. Since it was summer by now, theclosed windows and the tight door, neither of which had flyscreensinstalled, quickly gave the fact away. The Harrisons were gone.

  Another disappearance?

  I turned quickly and drove to the nearest town and went to the postoffice.

  "I'm looking for the Harrison family," I told the man behind the wicket.

  "Why, they moved several weeks ago."

  "Moved?" I asked with a blank-sounding voice.

  The clerk nodded. Then he leaned forward and said in a confidentialwhisper, "Heard a rumor that the girl got a touch of that spacemen'sdisease."

  "Mekstrom's?" I blurted.

  The clerk looked at me as if I'd shouted a dirty word. "She was a finegirl," he said softly. "It's a shame."

  I nodded and he went into the back files. I tried to dig alone behindhim, but the files were in a small dead area in the rear of thebuilding. I swore under my breath although I'd expected to find files indead areas. Just as Rhine Institute was opened, the Government combedthe countryside for dead or cloudy areas for their secret andconfidential files. There had been one mad claim-staking rush with theGovernment about six feet ahead of the rest of the general public,business and the underworld.

  He came back with a sorrowful look. "They left a concealed address," hesaid.

  I felt like flashing a twenty at him like a private eye did in the oldtough-books, but I knew it wouldn't work. Rhine also made it impossiblefor a public official to take a bribe. So instead, I tried to lookdistressed.

  "This is extremely important. I'd say it was a matter of life anddeath."

  "I'm sorry. A concealed forwarding address is still concealed. If youmust get in touch with them, you might drop them a letter to beforwarded. Then if they care to answer, they'll reply to your home."

  "Later," I told him. "I'll probably be back to mail it direct fromhere."

  He waved at the writing desk. I nodded and left.

  I drove back to the ex-Harrison Farm slowly, thinking it over.Wondering. People did not just go around catching Mekstrom's Disease,from what little I knew of it. And somehow the idea of Marian Harrisonwithering away or becoming a basket case, or maybe taking the painlessway out was a thought that my mind kept avoiding except for occasionalflashes of horror.

  I drove in toward the farmhouse again and parked in front of theverandah. I was not sure of why I was there except that I wanted towander through it to see what I could find before I went back to thepost-office to write that card or letter.

  The back of the house was locked with an old-fashioned slide bolt thatwas turned with what they used to call an "E" key. I shrugged, oiled myconscience and found a bit of bent wire. Probing a lock like that wouldhave been easy for a total blank; with esper I lifted the simple keepersand slid back the bolt almost as swiftly as if I had used a proper key.

  This was no case of disappearance. In every one of the fourteen roomswere the unmistakable signs of a deliberate removal. Discarded stuff wasmixed with the odds and ends of packing case materials, a scatteredcollection of temporary nails, a half-finished but never used box filledwith old clothing.

  I pawed through this but found nothing, even though I separated it fromthe rest to help my esper dig it without interference.

  I roamed the house slowly letting my perception wander from point topoint. I tried to time-dig the place but that was futile. I didn't haveenough perception.

  I caught only one response. It was in one of the upper bedrooms. Butthen as I stopped in the room where Marian had slept, I began again todoubt my senses. It could have been esper, but it was more likely thatI'd caught the dying traces of perfume.

  Then I suddenly realized that the entire premises were clear to me!

  An esper map of the world looked sort of like a mottled sky, with brightplaces and cloudy patches strewn in disorder across it. A mottled sky,except that the psi-pattern usually does not change. But this house hadbeen in a murky area, if not dead. Now it was clear.

  I left the house and went to the big combination barn and garage. It wasas unsatisfying as the house had been. Phillip Harrison, or someone, hadhad a workshop out there. I found the bench and a small table wherebolt-holes, oil marks, and other traces said that there had been one ofthose big combination woodworking machines there, the kind that combinescircular saw, drill, lathe, planer, router, dado, and does everything.There had been some metal-working stuff there, too, but nothing aselaborate as the woodshop. Mostly things like hacksaws and an electricdrill, and a circular scar where a blowtorch had been sitting.

  I don't know why I kept on standing there esping the abandoned set-up.Maybe it was because my esper dug the fact that there was somethingthere that I should know about, but which was so minute or remote thatthe impression did not come through. I stood there puzzled at my ownreluctance to leave until something satisfied that almost imperceptibleimpression.

  Idly I leaned down and picked up a bit of metal from the floor andfumbled it in my hand nervously. I looked around the place with my eyesand saw nothing. I gave the whole garage a thorough scanning with myesper and got zero for my trouble.

  Finally I snarled at myself for being an imbecile, and left.

  Everyone has done what I did, time and time again. I do not recallanything of my walk back to the car, lost in a whirl of thoughts, ideas,plans and questions. I would probably have driven all the way back to myapartment with my mind in that whirligig, driving by habit and training,but I was shaken out of it because I could not start my car by pokingthat bit of metal in the lock. It did not fit.

  I laughed, a bit ashamed of my preoccupation, and flung the bit of metalinto the grass, poked my key in the lock--

  And then I was out pawing the grass for that piece of metal.

  For the small piece of metal I had found on the floor of the abandonedworkshop was the spoke of that road sign that had been missing whenCatherine and I cracked up!

  I drove out along the highway and stopped near one of the standards. Iesped the sign, compared my impression against my eyesight. I made sure.

  That bit of metal, a half inch long and a bit under a quarter inch indiameter, with both ends faintly broken-ragged, was identical in sizeand shape to the unbroken spokes in the sign!

  Then I noticed something else. The trefoil ornament in the middle didnot look the same as I recalled them. I took Thorndyke's card out of mypocket and looked at the stereo. I compared the picture against the realthing before me and I knew that I
was right.

  The trefoil gizmo was a take-off on the fleur-de-lis or the Boy ScoutTenderfoot badge, or the design they use to signify North on a compass.But the lower flare of the leaves was wider than any of the morefamiliar emblems; almost as wide as the top. It took a comparison totell the difference between one of them right-side-up and another oneupside-down. One assumes for this design that the larger foils aresupposed to be up. If that were so, then the ones along that road outthere in or near Yellowstone were right-side-up, while the ones along myfamiliar highway were upside-down.

  I goaded myself. #Memory, have these things been turned or were theyalways upside-down?#

  The last thing I did as I turned off the highway was to stop and let myesper dig that design once more. I covered the design itself, let myperception roam along the spokes, and then around the circlet thatsupported the spokes that held the trefoil emblem.

  Oh, it was not obvious. It was designed in, so to speak. If I were askedeven today for my professional opinion I would have to admit that theway the circlet snapped into the rest of the ornamental scrollwork was amatter of good assembly design, and not a design deliberately created sothat the emblem could be turned upside down.

  In fact, if it had not been for that tiny, broken spoke I found on thefloor of the Harrison garage, never in a million years would I haveconsidered these road signs significant.

  * * * * *

  At the post office I wrote a letter to Phillip Harrison:

  _Dear Phil:_

  _I was by your old place today and was sorry to find that you had moved. I'd like to get in touch with you again. If I may ask, please send me your forwarding address. I'll keep it concealed if you like, or I'll reply through the post office, concealed forward._

  _As an item of interest, did you know that your house has lost its deadness? A medium-equipped esper can dig it with ease. Have you ever heard of the psi-pattern changing before?_

  _Ah, and another item, that road sign with the busted spoke has been replaced. You must be a bum shot, not to hit that curlicue in the middle. I found the spoke you hit on the floor of your garage, if you'd like it for a souvenir of one close miss._

  _Please write and let me know how things are going. Rumor has it that Marian contracted Mekstrom's and if you will pardon my mentioning a delicate subject, I am doing so because I really want to help if I am able. After all, no matter how lightly you hold it, I still owe you my life. This is a debt I do not intend to forget._

  _Sincerely,_

  _Steve Cornell._